Leonard Fong Roka

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Saturday, 7 November 2015

It was mid-2013, my third year at Divine Word University
(DWU), and I had 3 Bougainvillean girlfriends; two of them were in Kieta
eagerly awaiting my holiday home comings, whilst one was based in Madang where
I was.

Then I met Delphine Piruke, a shy second and final year
student at Madang Teachers College (MTC), from Nakorei Village in Buin and
added her into my list of concubines; I revolved around them, exploiting their
finances.

This was my promiscuous culture I had mushroomed since 2004
after walking out of the University of PNG. I was known far and wide with women
and alcohol in Panguna and the Kupe area in the hinterland of Arawa Town.

I spent more weekends out with Delphine employing the other
3 women’s finances at times beside her funds. The news of her going outs with
me spilled over to Bougainville and her relatives began ordering her to cut it
off. To me this was the ticket out of her.

Then one October 2013 day Delphine sent me a text message
reading ‘my monthly periods have ceased for two weeks now’ from the North Coast
of Madang where she was doing her teaching practical.

This was no surprise for me. This was one of the many ‘I am
pregnant’ texts I had received from my former women since 2004. In 2013 the two
women from Bougainville sent me ‘I am pregnant’ and ‘my monthly period is over’
regularly and both would later joke about it. About a week or so before
Delphine’s text the Madang based girl also sent me that and later laughed over
it.

So I was not bothered much but at the back of my mind a bell
was always ringing ‘You are a father’. The mystery call always infiltrated me;
made me uncomfortable, so I slowly began asking Delphine ‘how is your period?’
and ‘how is the baby?’ text regularly.

From the start I saw confidence in Delphine that I was the
father of the child she was carrying. But my promiscuous heart was lost and
confused and slowly hunted for escape routes.

From Madang I cultivated a relationship with a primary
school student and was ready to get the ball rolling.

Emotionally burdened I left Madang in October 2013 for my
holidays. I reached home in Arawa with the news of my pregnant Buin girlfriend Delphine
already in the ears of the many. One of my two home based girlfriends also left
me after hearing that I was a father. But for the primary school student my
news was unknown so I kept communicating with her by phone.

Delphine arrived at my home in Arawa in December and I was
in full acceptance that the child was my child but her relatives ordered her
out from me back to Buin with a price of K20 000.00 that she should pay them
for all their care and support in her education in order to marry me so I was knocked
off guard.

Such a malicious threat to me with my heart so deeply happy
about my child pummelled me to the ground unconscious. I was sad and regularly in tears thinking
about my unborn baby and that K20 000.00 and the stream of negative words
thrown at my daughter by Delphine’s relatives in resistance of me.

To me Delphine was not my wife without the K20 000.00 fixed
as they had stated and a bride price of K10 000.00 revealed to me by Delphine.

When Delphine left Arawa I lost my phone and all the contact
details of potential new girls who knew not I was a father so I was darkened for the holiday and
returned back to school in Madang in February 2014.

‘I am a father and why can’t the Buin people respect me and
my child and leave us alone’ was a knock that even made me cry watching
Delphine leaving that day. I was infuriated but what can I do! I had not the
money to shut their mouths.

My fellow students knew I was a father and respected me. My
Madang and the last home based girlfriends also deserted me thus I lived my
life occupied with my writings spending days in the DWU library.

Seeing these changes I decided to halt my promiscuity and
cut down my boozing culture. I was a father and thus I need to change for my
child and young nieces and uncles from my brother and three sisters who need a
better home to nurture into positive citizens of Bougainville.

In June 2014 my daughter was born and my mother who was at
her birth told me ‘Hi mummy, she is your photocopy’. I was happy out there and
began begging Delphine to send me her pictures so I can display them in my
Facebook walls and so on.

Delphine did not have the means to send me the pictures thus
remained silent but for me, mentally unsettled by the K20 000.00 and the high
probability of losing her, kept bombarding her. I demanded the little girl’s
pictures in order to accept her calls or answer her texts.

In this period that our current nightmares mushroomed; my
ignorance of her calls or texts, when the K20 000.00 ticket to marry her
haunted me got her to give her own reasons for my ignorance. Her emphasize was
that I was seeing other girls and began to distant myself from her and our
baby.

And from recent gleaning, a wave of gossipers from DWU and
MTC, kept bombing Delphine that I was seeing this and that girl in Madang while
she was busy teaching her first year in Buin.

Thus my reactions to Delphine’s relatives demands on her and
me; followed by the inducements from a handful of gossipers, alongside
Delphine’s personality paved the way into the kind of life we are going
through; and that is of tears and sorrow for Delphine will never trust a man
like me so she has to bark at me always.

Delphine began telling me she will never trust me for I was
a sex maniac; a liar and a cheat whenever we brawled. Our unborn child was facing all our upheavals
as they sprout between Bougainville and Madang.

Thursday, 30 April 2015

In the South Pacific context the imminent Bougainville
Referendum for a lasting political settlement for the nearly 40 years struggle
and loss of lives for the Bougainville people is a significant milestone for
the democratic political processes and strategies in the region.

Bougainvilleans are geographically and culturally Solomon
Islanders having dwelled for nearly 30 thousand years on the largest and the
resource rich island of the Solomon archipelago

.

Unfortunately, The
Anglo-German Declaration of 1886 and the Anglo-German Convention of 1899 dragged Bougainvilleans into the
colonial German New Guinea administration. This was and is the source of the
social, political and economic problems Bougainvilleans had faced over the
years; and eventually culminating into a Bougainville Crisis since 1988.

With the armed struggle sprouting off from the dissatisfaction
over Panguna mine exploits since 1988 and pouring over long years of political
struggles Bougainville submerged into a civil conflict claiming the lives of
some 10 to 15 thousand local people.

Peace was not that easy to achieve but after continuous
attempts the Bougainville Peace Agreement (BPA) was reached in 2001 between the
Bougainville groups and Papua New Guinea. Bougainville’s peace gave the
Bougainville people one significant offer and that is the referendum scheduled
to be held between 2015 and 2020.

But the BPA and the PNG’s Organic Law of Peace Building in
Bougainville prescribed two conditions are met for the referendum and they are:
weapons disposal and international standards of good governance.

When PNG is infested with illegal weapons and crime and
worst corruption index, under international standards, Bougainvilleans should
not fear their say in the referendum. But their important decision is to put
Bougainville on the right political track that should bring betterment for all.

Bougainvilleans are not reckless weapon users but their
presence is disharmony to many; there is corruption on Bougainville, but it can
be managed in a tiny island as Bougainville when people mandate right leaders
to power and endow them with more anti-corruption powers and functions are
given to them.

Understanding the Bougainville problem from the roots is the
key for the best outcome for the Bougainville referendum. The coming referendum
is to RIGHT the WRONGS done to the Bougainville society by colonization and the
state of PNG.

The wrongs we
should now know are well said by former leaders: Fr. John Momis said to BCL in
1987 that “The BCL mine has forever changed the perceptions, the hopes and
fears of the people of Bougainville. You are invaders. You have invaded the
soil and the places of our ancestors, but above all, your mine has invaded our
minds” and Martin Miriori said in 1996 referring to the Panguna mine and PNG
that “Bougainville and its people were a free independence gift by Australia to
Papua New Guinea”.

Then the late Joseph
Kabui separated Bougainville from PNG when he spelled it all out in 1991 by
saying that “It is a
feeling deep down in our hearts that Bougainville is totally different than
PNG, geographically, culturally. It's been a separate place from time immemorial.
Ever since God created the Universe, Bougainville has been separate, has been different”.

Thus the coming Bougainville referendum is to save
Bougainville and Bougainvilleans from the disaster an African writer/academic
Francis M. Deng wrote in his 1997 essay, Ethnicity:
An African Predicament, as “Deprive a people of their ethnicity,
their culture, and you deprive them of their sense of direction and purpose”.

This is a Bougainville
problem and must be stopped through the referendum granted to the people of
Bougainville by their unique BPA that allows no unilateral changes by way of
been an arrangement with ‘double
entrenchment’ and that is, PNG cannot influence the results of referendum
without Bougainvillean input and vice versa.

For Bougainvilleans,
there is now a need to really glean our purpose and reasons, to our political
standings. Our little groupings are tiny Bougainvillean groupings trying to
clash with a wider world order and its multilateral BPA expectations followed
by the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG).

Bougainvilleans need to
leave their tiny shells and walk the wider world for the coming referendum was
not created by a bilateral peace process (between PNG and Bougainville) but
rather by a multilateral peace process (between Bougainville, PNG, and many
other states and organizations).

Thus honouring a
multilateral peace agreement is fundamental to our positive reputation to the
international community.

When gathering for Bougainville in the PNG political pig
then the Solomon Island people of Bougainville should be always the tail that
is always moving. They are always
unstable within the PNG state since the 1960s and this can be correlated again
in the post crisis scene to the stability or instability in the Autonomous
Bougainville Government (ABG) of the day.

History should not be ignored by myopic thinkers of
Bougainville since it has some joules to pacify the Bougainville problem once
and for all that the current PNG and Bougainville leadership neglect as they
pursue the path of a reconciliatory politics invented by religion and
westernization to cover their 15th to 19th century brutality
on the colonized world.

On this note Bougainville politics had been a reconciliatory
one since the mid-1990s with the late Joseph Kabui, inaugural president of the
ABG, and the PNG government-assassinated premier of the Bougainville
Transitional Government (BTG), late Theodore Miriung.

Both deceased leaders succeeded not because PNG (PNG was
running after Sandline Mercenaries to take Panguna mine back, then) was
interested in peace with Bougainville but rather because Bougainvilleans in the
political divide created by the leadership of late Francis Ona, the 1988
rebellion leader, since 1990 due to his lack of political power to bring about
change across Bougainville as PNG fled the Solomons.

Reasonably PNG had abandoned Bougainville in 1990 but Bougainville’s
immature leadership had it having a fraction of influence over obvious areas
and persons since the 1990 Kavieng
Agreement signed by leaders from North Bougainville to get weeping PNG
government back onto Bougainville through providing services on Buka Island
(not Bougainville).

Bougainville was new in the field of western political
culture of the ever changing 21st century where colonization came in
with the three ‘Gs’ that are gold (money), glory (building empire) and god
(religion) to take over the world and Bougainville.

Thus the nurturing process of leadership on Bougainville had
no stable foundation but rather a hijacked and confused one where society was
in disarray and taken over by a sudden and massive intrusion of the human minds
in Bougainville by Eurocentrism.

The characteristics of most cargo cult movements across
Bougainville should proof the awkward nature of complications; to the people,
religion, politics, economy and society were mingled up to dismantle their
reception and interpretation of the changes.

In today’s autonomy status Bougainville have powers in its
own decision making processes but the sources of direction—to whom leadership
ought to align more to—has cause much political, economic and social stagnation
for the Solomon island people of Bougainville.

The ABG was created as a peace deal and thus has numerous
stakeholders to be answerable to. Top on the list is the culprit PNG
government, the UN, and so on. It is here that the internal Bougainville
society turns to conflict over its own political passage.

Since the 1960s reasons for Bougainvillean protests were
multi-headed. Bougainville had concerns over Rio Tinto destruction of
environment, BCL royalty inequity, BCL and PNG social, economic and political
exploitation of Bougainville resources and its people, independence to
highlight a few.

The 1988 militancy move by late Francis Ona and his
followers were an amalgamation of the said concerns thus Bougainville
leadership was a multifaceted one; though broadly painted as a political one,
it was a collection of issues compressed to look as one political struggle of
freedom for the northern Solomons.

This problematic leadership minds had now entered the
Bougainville government, the ABG. No matter how blessed with wisdom a leader
is, the scar of historical basis of political thinking for Bougainville is
prevalent.

Bougainville leaders have to choose who they are to uphold
in their decision making. The many issues of concern for Bougainville
leadership can aligned to root sources of the crisis, the ex-combatants, the
dictates of the peace agreement, PNG interest, foreign investors, BCL, interest
groups and so on. Which one of these will a leader have when making his
decisions?

So far the ABG leadership have suffered to decide whom to
listen to and follow suit.

The Bougainville government of the day had narrowed its
approach sources often more to economic recovery and clashed with issues that
nurtured the conflict on Bougainville. This is well evident with the
Momis-Nisira government and their Asian engagements where so far had clashed
with ordinary Bougainville people.

Momis-Nisira government had narrowly gone into partnership
with Asian businesses and individuals to get the Bougainville economy up
however all their deals are now ending in Asians taking over the cottage
industry in Buka Town that conflicts with Section 24 of the Bougainville
Constitution that talks about ABG would only support Bougainvillean initiatives
in any development activities like business.

Such leadership problem on Bougainville is rooted in the
notion of political nurturing under colonization. Bougainville and
Bougainvilleans were not designed through religion, education and so on to grow
and advance in the systems westernization had to enforce.

Change on Bougainville is possible if the leadership is
aligned to the people and decide what path to follow for the good of the people
and not the non-Bougainvillean influences and stakeholders.

It could be the joy of going home and visiting families but
rather at a little cost of highway cruelty I’d never felt before for there are
a few vehicles that serve passengers of this road.

Most passenger vehicles leaving Kokopau in the northern tip
of Bougainville for Buin in the southern most district of Bougainville generally
depart between 12 PM and 2 PM (Bougainville Standard Time) and track south along
the East Coast of Bougainville.

All Buin bound passengers in Buka prepare well for their
journey home. Shopping for the family at home; getting enough money into the
pocket for the little visits in the many road-side markets shelling fresh
fruits and garden produce and shops and also stops in Arawa or Wakunai.

All vehicles leave Kokopau before passenger vehicles for
central Bougainville; and closely at the same time with those travelling to
Siwai District.

The journey takes us some areas of north Bougainville mainly
Tinputz District through Central Bougainville.

After about 3 hours travellers reach Arawa, the former
provincial capital of Bougainville, and spent a little amount of time here;
mainly at the main Arawa Market.

More passengers join here the few from Buka in Arawa.

The passenger trend over the years is normal and known. Not
all passengers that get on board Buin transports reach Buin. Some are Buin
people living their lives in the many places along the Buka-Buin road, many in
Arawa, but love to be on a Buin person’s vehicle.

On the road there are also Buin people or other persons with
connections to Buin that wait for transports to Buin.

Thus from Arawa it is neither the vehicles get overloaded or
gets empty as it moves on for Buin. When more passengers get on it is a
nightmare for naturally on Bougainville the Buin people are said to be reckless
and care little on how much passengers or cargo that the vehicle could sustain
for safety reasons.

But the journey goes on.

Becoming from Oria, the passenger vehicles, begin their
drop-offs and all Buin transport service providers seem to be the best service
providers for all transport all passengers right to their door steps.

This is the most painful part of the Buka-Buin transport.
The main feeder roads like the Oria Road, the Tabago Road, the Muguai Road,
Laguai-Nakorei Road, Tokaino Road, Piano Road, Aku Road, and so on are long and
under the current poor conditions vehicles and their passengers and cargo track
them up and down to better serve their customers.

A Buka-Buin passenger pays K120 and earlier I thought this
was a stealing of our hard-earned money by the service providers. But later I
learned that this cost was worth the service they provide us. There is value to
the K120 fare we pay.

All Buin vehicles generally depart Buin for Buka on Mondays
and overnights in Buka and returns to Buin on Tuesdays. They make their journey
to fit the days in a manner that on every Friday all vehicles must return from
Buka to rest over the weekend at home.

On the return journey to Buka all passengers experience the
same pattern of travelling the villages and their road and depart for Buka by
around 12 midday and reach Buka by 4 PM.

Tuesday, 31 March 2015

It is a post Bougainville Crisis scene across south
Bougainville that the male population seem to be welded to a bush knife or a
grass knife where ever he seem to be.

An assembly at Kanauro Primary School

From the ordinary village settings, the educational classrooms,
the traditional feasting nights, other social gatherings and so on the Nagovisi
man, the Siwai man or the Buin man is always armed with an offensive weapon—a
dangerously sharpened worn out or brand new knife.

With such a culture south Bougainville has the record high
of death and injury caused by the application of a knife. Alongside their
knives of all categories—imported or home re-designed—guns step in where knives
fail.

Such a culture is worst in south Bougainville and a week at
Kanauro Primary School, in the Baubake Constituency of Buin District, spells
out the residues of what should be an irritating anti-social behaviour in this
part of Bougainville.

The question Bougainville needs to ask is: who are we arming
ourselves with such offensive weapons against? The New Guineans and Papuans
that troubled us from the slums around our pre-Bougainville Crisis urban
centres are no longer prevalent; the Papua New Guinea Defence Force is not
around shelling us; the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) or the
Bougainville Resistant Force (BRF) should be myths by now with civility
conquering our world, but why a knife in my hand or gun in my car and home?

I travel home regularly to Buin from Buka or vice versa and
aboard there would be a rifle or two. Often I wonder why we had a Bougainville
Peace Agreement in 2001 but still from leaders down to villagers we still have
these weapons around.

Every morning at Kanauro Primary School I watch our future
leaders, the students coming to school with knives, and feel insane; I often
ask myself ‘what is my new home Buin up to by enculturating its future with a
knife culture?’

The 10-year Bougainville Crisis taught me that a person with
any form of weapon is a secured one and with authoritative strength gained from
the confidence of having a weapon. It is such characters that caused havoc
during the Bougainville Crisis and thousands of our people had to be sacrificed.

At Kanauro Village and Kanauro Primary School the
highlighted concerns are deeply rooted and observable.

About a hundred meters away from the staff houses 8 in every
10 persons that march up or down the main Buin-Siwai highway at Kanauro has a
knife; and the ratio is also the same for the students that come to school.

Exploring the classrooms, at least, all has knife wounds and
high degree of vandalism. Students and community hardly respect teachers and
school property over time.

There is random stealing of lunch and property by the senior
students from the lower graders and villagers stealing from staff members and this
hurts the whole harmonious coexistence for better learning or peer education or
public relations.

All round the year, according to the teaching staff here,
they have preached change oriented positive information to the kids at
assemblies and classrooms. They have allocated for religious figures to talk to
the school every morning on Fridays.

But as the leaders talks students grumble behind at the
elders as some of the corrupted personalities and worth not listening to.

Such irresponsible behaviour to the few old folks was
unknown for this school since its creation in 1981 till 1990 but this is a post
Bougainville Crisis development.

But Bougainville should know that the crisis had no physical
existence but it is us the people that need to ask ourselves what our
responsibility and contribution is and should be to building a new and free
Bougainville.

At Kanauro, there is a lesson worth learning, and that is
Bougainvilleans are yet to learn that our island is changing and must change.
Society is stubborn to see and accept change happening in our midst. From the
public offices in Buka right down to villages like Kanauro Bougainvilleans are
locked in a past that is not productive in this age of openness and adaptation.

In Buka Bougainville has public servants that still see and
treat ABG as a provincial government and thus evoke no sweeping changes and
progress for Bougainville; and in Kanauro, we have people that are reluctant to
bring about change and development upon themselves through their available
resources like cocoa i.e. simple things like building permanent houses for
families, solar electrification for their homes.

At Buka ABG spends on consultants, advisors and so on to
induce change onto a public service body that sees the ABG as not an independent government when it is; and
down at Kanauro, people spend their hard earned cash from cocoa on alcohol and
howl their days boozing whilst spending their nights in bamboo walled and sago
leaf thatched homes and kids roam around in worn out or odd-looking stitched
clothing.

Thus who will bring change when the elderly with experience
of time are the ones leading the boozing gangs or the public servant is a
reluctant one to change?

The answer lies on Bougainvilleans learning why our island
and people have struggled against political and economic colonization and PNG
since the 1960s; this is a personal and leadership challenge for all ordinary Bougainvilleans
and the government.

I feel such a search back in time can have the Bougainville
society and the Kanauro villager and the ABG officer in Buka see light on where
to go on from the autonomous stage of government to a progressive and free
Bougainville that thousands have suffered and died for.

Saturday, 6 December 2014

The current Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) house
took power in 2010 and had scrambled available resources and energy on the
ground for an economic recovery based entirely on Asia friendly economic
strategies and Chinese investment in Bougainville.

Thus in the rush, the Bougainville Executive Council (BEC)
approved a Bougainville China Cooperation Committee (BCCC) in early 2011 with
the key role to ‘promoting and coordinating joint venture Chinese investment in
Bougainville, and establishing strategic partnership with China to fully
support President Momis’ Vision: Change for Better Future’.

According to PNG’s Investment Promotion Authority (IPA) in
Port Moresby since getting power the ABG had created a number of companies
between 2010 and 2013 with all key positions held by Chinese figures and key
Bougainville parliamentarians and their local business cronies.

Amongst the companies the more detailed are the ABG owned
Bougainville Public Investment Corporation Limited with task to provide legal
position for ABG to go into any joint venture business, a number of ABG-China
jointly owned including Bougainville General Development Corporation Limited
with a tasked to create one capacity development company for every industry,
Bougainville Import and Export General Corporation Limited with a task to
promote direct export and import between Bougainville and China and Bougainville
Energy and Water Development General Corporation Limited that was tasked to
develop hydro power and water conservation infrastructure projects and so on.

But political reluctance and lack of technical resources had
silenced all registered companies living two, Bougainville General Development Corporation Limited (BGDE) and Bougainville Import and Export General
Corporation Limited (BIEGC), operating as the protective legal shield for
reckless Asian influx into Buka Town to operate retail outlets and not
performed what they were created for.

According to the PNG Labour Office in Port Moresby their
records state that BGDE has five employees and the BIEGC has four employees in
Bougainville. This is a contrast to the population of Chinese said to be under the
leadership of Jason Fong (real name Zhenxiang Fang who is an executive/managing
director of Timesview Investment
(PNG) Ltd) who was established as the Trade Commissioner between Bougainville
and China by the Momis-Nisira government.

But this whole Bougainville China Corporation or the
Momis-Nisira model is being questioned by President Momis’ owned
parliamentarians and Bougainville’s concerned citizens since, according to
public opinion, the Momis-Nisira model is no different from the Kabui Model or
the Bougainville Resources Development Corporation (BRDC) engineered then by the
former Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) leader Sam Kauona and was resisted
by ABG for giving away 70 percent of Bougainville mineral wealth to Australian
businessman Lindsay Semple.

‘We the ABG leaders created all these companies and invited
all these Chinese,’ an ABG member who did not want to be named told me, ‘but
now we cannot control them because we do not have the capacity thus they are
now on their own doing whatever they want to do on Bougainville at their own
will.

‘They are running their own businesses and playing around
with our laws since the ABG had mandated them to do so through the Bougainville
China Corporation. We had not learnt anything from what these Chinese corrupted
PNG law enforcers to exploit PNG had.

‘Beside, some of our own parliamentarians are beneficiaries
to all these Chinese operations, a clear example was the recent China-Meekamui
arrangement that were getting scrap metal in Panguna, many thought it was a
sole Meekamui operation but few of our ABG leaders were in the core of the
operation there.’

Bougainvillean communities are becoming frustrated with the
ABG leadership and Chinese culture of trickery in doing business.

According to a BCCC paper, one of ABG’s aims of getting
China has a strategic partner, was that China had abundant capital and high
expertise (aim #3) but this is contradictory in the Chinese operations on
Bougainville.

What now can be witnessed in the Buka Town is that all the
Bougainville China Corporation activities seem to be retail outlets; a handful
of restaurants, vehicle spare part sales, wholesales, hardware, and more still
to be coming. Currently under the leadership of the said trade commissioner
Jason Fong a massive vehicle spare part wholesale is under construction
(pictured above) which, according to Bougainvillean employees working for the
Bougainville China Corporation, is aimed to choke all other car dealers in
Bougainville.

From Buka, the Bougainville China Corporation did also
established in Toniva in Kieta originally with the claim of establishing a
manufacturing operation known as the Toniva Industrial Zone. The start-up
product was the manufacturing of roofing iron but they started off by
manufacturing bed frames, tables, chairs and so on for a few weeks.

But to the surprise of the people shipping containers of
food items arrived in Kieta for a wholesale operation that led to men raiding
the establishment late November 2014. This raid followed an October 2014 claim
to the ABG member of North Nasioi and ABG Minister for Primary Industry, Hon.
Nicholas Daku, of K600 403.30 by a local contractor, Bougainville Metal
Fabricating & Welders who were contracted by the Bougainville China
Corporation to build the Toniva Industrial Zone.

Over the duration of the construction phase the ABG-Chinese
companies BGDE and BIEGC had not paid them for the labour, equipment usage, and
so on nearly getting the company bankrupt.

The PNG Labour Office in Port Moresby stated its officers in
Buka are also facing dilemma with the implementation of their legal
responsibilities on the ABG-Chinese operations on Bougainville.

When Department of Labour, the Internal Revenue Commission,
Customs, and so on attempt to exercise their duties where fault is identified
in areas of work permits and other related agendas the Chinese direct them to
ABG presidential and vice presidential offices.

In other conflicts the ABG parliamentarians had confronted
the government agencies defensively in protection of the Chinese activities
that are not at all activities initially said to be the functions of BGDE and
BIEGC.

Friday, 28 November 2014

‘Bougainville is such a small place that need us the
indigenous people to be in charge of developing it in terms of business and
other economic activities,’ Luke Maneu from Siwai in south Bougainville told
me, recently. ‘The ABG and our MPs in the National Government should be the
ones pushing the laws and systems to create a conducive environment for
localization of all cottage industries.’

JN Trading and Asian BCM

Mr. Maneu had successfully operated a retail outlet in Buka
Town since 2009 till 2011 when the Asian influx and affected his operations
leading him to venturing into other businesses like operating a PMV service and
a guesthouse.

‘With the Asian entry into Buka Town,’ Mr. Maneu said, ‘my
business had been harmed as are with the other businesses owned by fellow
Bougainvilleans. Customers had left us for the cheaper Asian goods.

‘I think we are said to be expensive in our shops because we
do not have the entrepreneurial power base that is a business culture thus we
are learners that need time and government input to make things right for all
our services to the Bougainvillean public. So in these terms, the Asian influx
is murdering us the Bougainville people so a few of us are trying to spread the
risk of dying.

‘I am moving into other areas to save myself from succumbing
to the Asian takeover. With more areas to earn something I am safe for the time
being. To Bougainvillean businesses time is not with us. Soon we
will see more Bougainvillean businesses leaving the scene because they cannot
stand the might of all these Asian operations.’

Few other Bougainvillean business houses I visited namely
Wedelyne, JN Trading, TM Trading, Haput Clothing, Maia Clothing and Evokong
shared the same fear.

The Asian operations are taking all the business activities
they have been doing over the years before the Asians were invited to
Bougainville.

‘Earlier we heard that the ABG was inviting Asians to work
in multi-million kina impact projects like the said oil palm in Torokina,
’Chris Haput of Haput Clothing said. ‘But we were amazed to see them setting up
tiny retail booths all around.

‘From one or two booths they went all over Buka Town
grabbing and renting off large buildings from Buka people and not the ones from
the mainland of Bougainville. Mainland property owners around Buka Town seem to
have been anti-Asian and run their properties themselves but we are all facing
the same threat.

‘So a lot of mainland businesses seem to slowly move to
Arawa and other places in mainland Bougainville where the people are against
Asians. The Toniva setup in Kieta was attacked this week by locals and that is
good since the ABG is not willing to protect us.’

Haput Clothing operates next to one of the many Asian BCM
Trading retail outlets legally owned by a Siwai lady, Mary Lyn, who is a second
wife of a Chinese who exists as a Lyn.

According to JN Trading, a husband and wife operation
running a retail outlet and a guesthouse, that operates next to the main BCM
Trading that Mary Lyn has some power over admitted that the Siwai lady is not
in good mood with the whole BCM Trading and its many retail outlets.

‘Mary Lyn is our neighbour and best friend,’ Nathan Haliken,
the husband in the JN Trading, said. ‘She admits she’s been exploited by her
Chinese husband who also has a wife and children back in China.

‘She knows her marriage is a marriage of convenience and not
love. The Asian wants to make money in Bougainville under her protection and so
she, despite being the director in the IPA certification, she has not much
power over all the BCM trading retail outlets spreading around the tiny Buka
Town.’

The JN Trading also lose customers at their Buka Market
boat-stop location when the BCM Trading began to rent the room next to them.
The BCM Trading next to them and under Mary Lyn registered as a restaurant but
also sells 10 kg rice bales and other goods; and also, had been selling beer
late at night to drunkards.

Evokong and Maia Clothing, both from Kieta and have their business
presence in both Buka and Arawa, admitted that their operations in Buka Town
had shrink in terms of daily takings with cheaper goods offered by these Asian
multinational business operations.

Wedelyne, a local business from Buka, on the other hand
followed Luke Maneu’s strategy to survive. They had ventured into PMV services
and Taxi and a retail outlet.

Most Bougainvillean businesses, both owned by Buka islanders
and mainlanders of Bougainville, feel operating in Buka is not worth their
sacrifices and are starting to flee the Asian takeover of Buka Town and move to
the mainland Bougainville.

In the mainland of Bougainville Asians had being invited and
once seen has going off-track they had been kicked out. The Toniva setup in
Kieta has faced it first wave of attacks by locals and soon will be going up in
flames report are suggesting.

Over the weekend (night of 28-29 November) Asians in Buka
Town were hinted that certain businesses of theirs were under target by
disgruntling locals thus a midnight lone police vehicle and officer’s surveillance
at a BCM Trading indirectly informed the few drunkards that the Buka Police had
been penetrated by the Asian tycoons.

Anti-Asian feeling is growing amongst the Bougainvillean
business houses and ordinary people in Buka Town and time will tell us the next
move.

About Me

I come from the Tumpusiong Valley that is welknown as the Jaba Tailings area of the Panguna district in Bougainville. I was born the first son of a family of five children in 1979 at Arawa from a mixed West New Britain and Bougainville parentage. In 1986 I began my schooling at Piruana VTPS but my education was disturbed by the Bougainville Crisis in 1990 as I was doing Gr 4. As the Peace Process came in, I resumed schooling from 1995 and ended up at UPNG in 2003 but then left from my year 2 in 2004. From 2004 to 2010 I was grounded at home taking up part-time jobs with firstly, the NRI, the Electral Commission of PNG and the Ioro Roadworks from 2007 to 2010. And this year 2011, my spirit decided to be educated so here I am at Divine Word University.